Defining English as a professional lingua franca: a specialised approach
Résumé
This article examines English as a professional lingua franca, a field of study lying at the intersection of Professional Discourse Analysis (PDA) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The discussion begins with an overview of the traditional approaches to professional discourse where English is mostly conceived as a business language and where the specialised aspects are generally relegated to the realms of technical lexis. It then proceeds with a short typology of English as a professional lingua franca by using the Goffmanian metaphor of frontstage and backstage discourse. Finally, it presents some methodological and pedagogical implications through the presentation of a professional ELF corpus which is tailored to the needs of professional or specialised discourse analysis.